Thursday, September 17, 2015

Carly Rose To The Occasion Lapping The Field

A
scrapper with true grit, Carly Fiorina took the stage at the Reagan
Presidential Library for the second GOP debate and drew her sword. Brit Hume and a whole host of male pundits
criticized Fiorina’s failure to smile noting that she came across as too
aggressive and lacking humor.

Geez
boys. I find nothing humorous about
mutilating babies to harvest their organs, the national debt, the threat of a
nuclear-armed Iran, Putin’s incursions into Syria, the growing Islamic
Caliphate, drug addiction and the culture of corruption in politics. How about coming to terms with the fact that
she had to show her toughness on
stage?

On six
morning talk shows today Fiorina said, “This is going to be a fight. If you can’t fight on a debate stage, you
can’t stand up and fight for the American people.” She went on to say, “It’s only a woman whose
appearance would be talked about when running for president—never a man.” She added,
“The point is, women are half this nation.
Women are half the potential of this nation. Still somehow we spend a lot of time talking
about women’s appearance instead of their qualifications.” [Damn right.]

John Podhoretz praised
her performance noting, “At
almost any moment that she managed to seize time to speak—and she was compelled
by the structure of the debate to interrupt repeatedly to get that time—she
knocked it out of the park.”

One über-liberal
pundit wrote, "If you right wingers get your act together and nominate
Carly, you win."

The first came when
Fiorina turned a meandering conversation about Vladimir Putin into a crisp
recitation of what a new commander in chief should do about Russian aggression:

"What I would do,
immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the
missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military
exercises in the Baltic States. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops
into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it
is so critically important that every one of us know General Soleimani's name
is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force
traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran
and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad."

"We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild the
missile defense program. We haven't.
I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what
they've asked for, which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what
they've asked for, bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it. I will. We
could arm the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is
within our control."

Fiorina had packed
more policy prescriptions into one brief statement—all while throwing in a dig
at Donald Trump with the reference to knowing "General Soleimani's
name"—than any other candidate onstage could muster.

Any other campaign
might have dispatched spinners to celebrate the moment. But Fiorina was just
getting started. Next came an epic and out-of-the-blue connection of two of the
issues about which there is a lot of agreement among Republicans—Iran's nuclear
ambitions and the scandal over Planned Parenthood's sale of body parts. How to
put those two together?

"I would like to link
these two issues. One has something to do with the defense of the security of
this nation. The other has something to do with the defense of the character of
this nation. You have not heard a plan about Iran from any politician up here,
here is my plan. On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls,
the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand
with the state of Israel."

"The second, to the supreme leader, to tell him that unless and until he opens
every military and every nuclear facility to real anytime, anywhere inspections
by our people, not his, we, the United States of America, will make it as
difficult as possible and move money around the global financial system."

"We can do that; we
don't need anyone's cooperation to do it. And every ally and every adversary we
have in this world will know that the United States in America is back in the
leadership business, which is how we must stand with our allies."

"As regards Planned
Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton,
Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table,
it's heart beating, it's legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it
alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation, and if
we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on
us."

The power of
Fiorina's presentation simply knocked out a lot of viewers. Conservative writer
Mollie Hemingway, who has been pressing the media to pay more attention to the
Planned Parenthood videos, was left nearly speechless, tweeting "THANK YOU
CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY."

But Fiorina's most
intense big moment was still to come—and it was by far the briefest. Everyone
knew that Donald Trump's insults about Fiorina's looks—the "Look at that
face. Would anyone vote for that?" quote from Trump in a recent Rolling
Stone article—would come up in the debate. It did, when moderator Jake Tapper
read it to Fiorina and noted Trump's explanation that he was not talking about
Fiorina's actual face but rather her "persona."

"Please feel
free to respond what you think about his persona," Tapper said to Fiorina.
Referring to an earlier spat between Trump and Jeb Bush over a Bush statement
about women's health, Fiorina answered:

"You know, it's
interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what
Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr.
Trump said."

Fiorina's answer took
just a few seconds, but it knocked Trump flat—something that has not happened
in any debate, or any other campaign event, so far. Trump, who has made it a
habit not to apologize for attacks and to double down when challenged,
surrendered completely. But he managed to do it in a way that did him no good
at all. "I think she's got a beautiful face," Trump said, "and I
think she's a beautiful woman." Did anyone believe that? And wasn't he
still saying her appearance is an issue?

Finally, Fiorina
lapped the field when Tapper asked the candidates to suggest a woman to put on
the $10 bill. Most of the men onstage were unprepared for the question. When the question came to the only woman on
the stage, Fiorina rejected its premise.

Four big moments in one debate. No other candidate had
that.

Carly Fiorina Rips Planned Parenthood

Carly
Fiorina Slams Hillary Clinton

Trump On Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina Gets Personal Discussing Drugs

According to Fiorina’s 2015 memoir, her stepdaughter,
Lori, died in 2009 after struggling with alcohol, prescription pills and
bulimia. She was just 35.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please scribble on my walls otherwise how will I know what you think, but please don’t try spamming me or you’ll earn a quick trip to the spam filter where you will remain—cold, frightened and all alone.